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the Integrated Teaching and Learning Program: Teach Engineering

This lesson package for middle school integrates authentic spectral data from NASA's Cassini exploration of Saturn and its moon, Titan. Students will analyze known data from UV spectroscopes, then match the peaks and valleys to spectral images returned from Cassini. With careful comparison, they should be able to determine at least two elements present in Saturn's rings and on Titan. Lesson objectives include: 1) Match plots of new data to experimentally known data;2) Gain a deeper understanding of the complex design that is required for spacecraft instrumentation and communications;3) Compare/contrast chemical composition of Earth, Saturn, and Titan;4) Understand that Saturn's moon, Titan, has an atmosphere which could contain building blocks that support life.

See Related Materials for a link to an Flash activity that gives students interactive practice in identifying digital spectral patterns from the Cassini mission.

The lesson contains worksheet with answer key, Power Point warm-up, and vocabulary lists. This resource is part of the TeachEngineering digital library, which provides teacher-tested lessons designed to connect real-world experiences with curricular content in the K-12 science/math classroom.

Standards (8)

AAAS Benchmark Alignments (2008 Version)

4. The Physical Setting

4A. The Universe

6-8: 4A/M3. Nine planets of very different size, composition, and surface features move around the sun in nearly circular orbits. Some planets have a variety of moons and even flat rings of rock and ice particles orbiting around them. Some of these planets and moons show evidence of geologic activity. The earth is orbited by one moon, many artificial satellites, and debris.

9-12: 4A/H3. Increasingly sophisticated technology is used to learn about the universe. Visual, radio, and X-ray telescopes collect information from across the entire spectrum of electromagnetic waves; computers handle data and complicated computations to interpret them; space probes send back data and materials from remote parts of the solar system; and accelerators give subatomic particles energies that simulate conditions in the stars and in the early history of the universe before stars formed.

4D. The Structure of Matter

6-8: 4D/M5. Chemical elements are those substances that do not break down during normal laboratory reactions involving such treatments as heating, exposure to electric current, or reaction with acids. All substances from living and nonliving things can be broken down to a set of about 100 elements, but since most elements tend to combine with others, few elements are found in their pure form.

4F. Motion

3-5: 4F/E3. Light travels and tends to maintain its direction of motion until it interacts with an object or material. Light can be absorbed, redirected, bounced back, or allowed to pass through.

6-8: 4F/M1. Light from the sun is made up of a mixture of many different colors of light, even though to the eye the light looks almost white. Other things that give off or reflect light have a different mix of colors.

6-8: 4F/M6. Light acts like a wave in many ways. And waves can explain how light behaves.

6-8: 4F/M8. There are a great variety of electromagnetic waves: radio waves, microwaves, infrared waves, visible light, ultraviolet rays, X-rays, and gamma rays. These wavelengths vary from radio waves, the longest, to gamma rays, the shortest.

12. Habits of Mind

12B. Computation and Estimation

9-12: 12B/H4. Use computer spreadsheet, graphing, and database programs to assist in quantitative analysis of real-world objects and events.

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